Back then there was no puzzle pieces to the trifecta and none of this fancy stuff. The year was 2012 , 3 years ago around this time. It was a time that nobody knew much about the Spartan Race. Everyone knew what Tough Mudder was all about and the type of obstacle race. Don’t ask me why but Spartan Race was a few years ahead of Tough Mudder but a small % knew about it. I’m referring to just this location here in California, can’t tell if that’s how it was in other states.

I can still remember training for my first half marathon and a close friend of mine asks me if I wanted to do a Spartan Race. A quick google search told me all about it and there was NOT as much information on youtube. Nowadays there’s pretty much goPROs in every race.

I was scared to sign up for the Spartan Beast because I had no clue what I was getting into. I did it and signed up with a gut feeling. Eventually I told a bunch of other friends and suddenly this race that only me and my friend was going to do grew up to 20+… We had a team called Beast Mode Engaged and even made T-shirts. For the next 3 months prior to the race we had training sessions and tons of talk in the facebook group.

There was seriously not much info out there besides what Spartan Races had on their training manuals (not that it was bad). We wanted real feedback from veterans but it was rare so we were on a blind. Training was based on crossfit but none of us were actually in a class. It helped a lot trying to mix the work outs together.

I remember watching this video almost once a week for motivation.

Eventually race day came and from the anticipation we were excited. Long story short we did complete the Beast and it was the last race of the 2012 season (I think).

Now every corner, there’s a guy wearing a spartan shirt , a sticker, and sweater etc. Good for everyone but it’s always great to be one of the first few that done it.

This is probably ancient now but do you guys remember that Dial was their sponsor before Reebok? If you see someone with a shirt that has Dial they were a 2012!!

Cheers to everyone who has done a Spartan Race. Doesn’t matter if you were with us at the start before it blew up to what it is now. Every Spartan is well respected. I hope to catch a few of you guys out there in races. I will be posting a giveaway on my Instagram Channel : @RunningMileCom